Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane have their megadeals— and the hockey world has its best-yet example of how stars will be paid under the most recent CBA.

Toews and Kane signed identical eight-year, $84 million contract extensions with the Chicago Blachawks on Wednesday. Starting in the 2015-16 season, each will count $10.5 million against the salary cap. That sounds like a lot, and it certainly is, but it's past time for someone other than Alex Ovechkin to carry the highest cap hit in the league. It's also time for fans and media alike to recalibrate what constitutes a star salary in the NHL.

Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews (AP Photo)

As the cap has risen — and it's gone from about $50 million in 2007-08 to $69 million for 2014-15 — so too has the average player salary. For a few reasons (now-illegal front-loaded, overly long contracts among them) the cost of elite players hasn't followed.

Like James Mirtle noted, Kane and Toews will each make a smaller percentage of a $75 million cap (about 14 percent) than Brad Richards did in 2007-08, at $7 million (16 percent) of a $50.3 million cap. Considering that, and the fact that guys like Joe Sakic and Jaromir Jagr were making around $10 million before the 2004-05 lockout, it's tough to say that Toews and Kane are overpaid at all, really.

Another thing to remember: the NHL, out to eliminate those front-loaded deals we mentioned earlier, capped contract extensions at eight years and severely limited how far player salaries can fall from year to year. The Pittsburgh Penguins were lucky enough to sign Sidney Crosby to his contract extension before the lockout.

So, Crosby will earn more than $86 million in the first eight years of his deal and $18 million over the last four, which works out to a $8.7 million cap hit. Toews, Kane and Chicago GM Stan Bowman didn't have that option, thus the higher hit.

Even though the Blackhawks aren't overpaying Toews and Kane in the grand scheme, the extensions aren't completely team-friendly. Spending 28 percent of your cap payroll on two guys, as Chicago is projected to do in 2015-16, makes filling out a roster more difficult.

Chicago's prospect pipeline is good, and that will help cycle in young, cheap, productive players, which is a must. The Blackhawks aren't problem-free, though; $6 million a year through 2020 for goalie Corey Crawford is too much. Marian Hossa, for all his gifts, is 35 years old with a $5.275 hit that will be a problem down the road because of the cap recapture penalty.

Another way of looking at it: Chicago, with a $75 million cap in 2015-16, currently projects to use nearly 52 percent of its cap space on its five highest-paid players. As Adam Gretz noted at About.com, four of the last five Stanley Cup champions were at 47 percent or less. The 2012-13 Blackhawks, at 50 percent, were the outlier.

As constituted, Chicago has about $65 million in space dedicated to 15 players for 2015-16. Having $10 million to fill out the roster (and pay RFAs like Brandon Saad and Nick Leddy) is not ideal.

What's less ideal, though, is not having Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane. They're paid appropriately, and while that presents some challenges for Chicago, it's a good problem to have.